The MALAZAN computer game that never was

I also wrote a proposal for a Malazan videogame. Our producer went to
Steven Erikson's house to discuss it with him. I think Ian Camerson
Esslemont liked it but Erikson wasn't so keen - my design for the game
strongly resembled my current project, The Shadow Sun,
while Erikson wanted something more akin to a first-person shooter. As
you can imagine, it didn't work out, though I did receive a nice signed
and personalised Subterranean Press edition of Gardens of the Moon.

Scull states that the head of his company spoke to both Ian Esslemont and Steven Erikson about the game, which would have been an RPG. However, whilst Esslemeont was keen Erikson was not, and apparently preferred a first-person shooter type of approach.

Later on, Scull talks about how he envisages a Malazan game looking:

Of all the current major fantasy series, I'd say Malazan was easily the best fit for an RPG in the style of Baldur's Gate.
The whole series is, after all, a high-level homebrew D&D game
played out in novel form across multiple continents with hundreds of
characters. It would be an easy thing to strip away the standard RPG
races and classes and replace them with Malazan-specific variants, then
start the protagonist as a lowly squad member in some far-flung corner
of the Malazan Empire during the events of the series. Once you
introduce warrens into the mix you can even justify having the
protagonist flitting in and out of events depicted in the novels. Even
the magic system, while unusual and perhaps tricky to adapt at first,
would lend itself to some new and potentially interesting system design
outside of the standard Vancian/mana-based approach.

For me, Malazan is not so much character or even plot-driven as it is
world-driven. I read it because of the setting and Erikson's febrile
imagination; stuff that translates perfectly well to game form and would
give a Malazan title a massive advantage over the tepid worldbuilding
efforts of even companies like Bioware. The complex storytelling of the
novels could easily be ignored or strategically touched upon to enhance
the protagonist's own story.

With series that are very character-driven, I agree that it is very
difficult to separate the game enough from the source material/central
narrative to make it worthwhile licensing as a setting. It's the old
Dragonlance versus Forgotten Realms dichotomy; outside of the story of
the Heroes of the Lance, the former has very little to offer while the
latter is, by virtue of being a complete clusterf**k, a wonderful place
to set a game in.

(I know Erikson has criticised the Forgotten Realms in the past. I always found that somewhat ironic in the circumstances.)

No, I fixed that (problem was that not only did I need to uninstall it, but I needed to go into Broswer Tools for Plugins and click "remove" there as well, that stopped the in-text ads). Gonzalo84 in the Community Forum said that it was some sort of Wikia-wide outage; sporadically and intermittently it gets better enough to post, only to lock up again for hours.

Here dies my hope for a good Malazan RPG. I would have paid at least 500$ for a Malazan isometric 2D game from Obsidian on kickstarter, in the vein of Torment/BG2,Project Eternity. But for a first person shooter,Skyrim like, meh

Even as someone who had a lot of problems with the later Malazan books, the idea of a Malazan RPG is pretty incredible. Given the series' focus on worldbuilding I think that an open world Elder Scrolls type game might fit better than a Baldur's Gate, but either would be awesome. A Malazan first person shooter on the other hand... WTF?

I've always thought the Malazaan world would be the perfect setting for an MMO. A huge world with half a dozen fully developed continents and literally dozens of distinct races and nations, all fully fleshed out. It would take a lifetime's worth of expansions before they ran out of material with which to expand upon the world. And with Ascension they'd have the perfect endgame for high powered characters.

Hah ! That's odd. I remember the first time I played Luke Scull's Neverwinter Nights module called Crimson Tides of Tethyr, and I thought, "than guy must be an Erikson fan". This Malazan RPG could've been really good, pity it didn't happen.

I am veteran RPG’er but new to the Malazan worlds, I have finished the first book & ½ way into the 2nd. I want to use this in my RPG & I’m shocked there is not material out there for a game already. The readers & RPG’er need to get together & compare notes. There are many systems to use combat and game set up. That is easy. Not the trick is the magic & the Warrens. How does it work? Is the physical like a book or mental as an act of will or both? What are the limitations of spells or abilities? IS there a difference in what warrens can do or is it all the same? What are the rules for travel by warren and when warrens touch? Is there a spell list? There are levels (of experience) that drive how well a wizard can control the warren and it’s magic.

Once you have this all you need is a detailed list of races/monsters and book characters past & present. I challenge you all to post your information and ideas. Just a players forum where we all can share for use with our games.